Kit Carson prison in Burlington to close; 142 jobs lost

fortmorgantimes.com – The prison in Burlington will shut down at the end of July, bringing a loss of 142 jobs in the small town on Colorado’s eastern plains and a devastating impact on the community’s tax-funded services, businesses and schools.

The closure “just quite frankly stinks for a small community like Burlington,” said Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a Republican from Sterling and one of several Colorado leaders pledging to help Kit Carson County recover financially.

As prison populations have declined nationwide because of criminal justice reform, the number of inmates in Colorado’s 20 prisons also has decreased. Kit Carson Correctional Center, one of three private prisons in Colorado run by Corrections Corporation of America, will become the sixth prison in the state to shut down in the last decade. The Burlington facility now has about 400 inmates, despite a capacity to hold more than 1,400.